Adventures and misadventures in the kitchen, garden, and wilderness--plus whatver else the Kat drags in!

Monday, January 25, 2010

Brain Dump (by Kat)

Today ends a three day weekend, here in our town.

Today was semester break for all the kids in town, whether they really have need of it or not. I just can't see a kindergarten-aged kiddo needing to cram for semester finals, but I also can't see them complaining about an extra day of weekend, either!

Tomorrow would have been our first day of home school classes, but Chirp-chirp (as I'm calling my daughter from here-forward) decided that she wants to try the new semester at school. The principal previously stated that there was no way Chirp-chirp could change classes, so we said we'd pull her from the school instead. Suddenly, as if by magic (surely it couldn't be capricious, right?) we were promised new classes with the new semester. So we'll see... My preference was to simply yank her and get started with our own learning at home. I'm not a big fan of wait and see. But, I'm outvoted, so... we'll wait and see.

On a brighter note, one of our hens laid an egg for us on Saturday afternoon. Then it snowed two inches on Sunday, and I guess that was that. I used the egg this evening in this month's Daring Bakers Challenge. I can't wait to show you what we made this month. It was so good, and so easy, that I made it twice! I can't unveil the challenge until the 27th, though, but I promise this one is really worth checking back for.

What else... I've read three books so far this year. All were books that Mr. Boom checked out from the library. None were really to my taste, except that I'm the type to pick up any book laying about and read it. This last book, "Glass House," by Charles Stross gave me very serious nightmares. This piece of science fiction is set way in the future, in a society where bodies are changed into any shape imaginable, and memories are erasable. Technology prevents people from growing old, and as people collect too much emotional baggage, they dump it through a quasi-surgical process. Successful surgeries only remove what the "patient" considered too painful to keep, but unsuccessful procedures can erase too much, or allow flashbacks to occur later on. Worst of all, if you go in for a complete erasure, how do you know afterward that you wanted your memories erased? How do you know it wasn't forced upon you? Creeeeeeepy!

After dinner this evening we walked over to the library. I found another couple of books to read. I don't assume these will be much better, but even a little bit better will help. Our little library doesn't understand the difference between science fiction and fantasy. I love fantasy, especially anything by Charles de Lint. Our library doesn't have a single one of his books, and very very very very little in the way of any type of fantasy. We have hard-core science fiction, we have romance, we have popular fiction. Bleh. I chose two popular fiction books, both promise to be thrilling page turners with heroines with deep dark family secrets. Bleh. Oh well, no nightmares ought to ensue from this reading this pap.

What I did get, that I've had my nose in quite a bit already this evening, is "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart. I baked this week's bread yesterday. We need to eat those two loaves ASAP so I can try some of the 50+ recipes in this book. He talks a lot about techniques, and is a big fan of the ratio method of cooking. I'm so in love....

I've tried to crochet three hearts. You won't be seeing pictures of those! I also have a big pile of unraveled dishcloth yarn. I'm trying to learn the basket weave pattern. Practice and patience. Bleh.

Oh, and we lit a ping pong ball on fire last night. In the house. On accident. It was actually very breathtaking. And very stinky! Nowhere on the internet can I find what gas is inside a ping pong ball. I thought I could narrow it down by seeing if it was a heavy gas. I held the ball over a candle flame with a pair of tongs. Mr. Boom was just going to hold it in his hand, but it was my experiment and I insisted on the tongs. Well, it isn't a heavy gas, and that's about all I have to say on the subject.